Brad Chase wrote at 21/8/97 11:10 pm
>This lets you use the fonts installed on your
>system when publishing electronically, much as other technologies let
>you print using the same fonts.
So printing a flat "one use" piece of paper is the same thing as
distributing a digital file with "fonts" (which are held in the cache
folder)?
If that's the case why do we need TrueDoc at all, we may as well
distribute the originals?
Either you accept that PFRs are fonts or they're non-reusable resources,
they can't be both.
>If you can legally create a printed
>document with TrueDoc, you can legally create an electronic publication.
This is nonsense, when you buy a font you have a licence to use it, that
usage specifaclly allows print, and specifically disallows "reverse
engineering", a PFR is a "reversed engineered" font.
Also type design is protected in many countries outside the USA, TrueDoc
PFRs are by necessity derivative of protected designs. Type designers
have granted permission to the original font manufacturers to use that
design, they never granted Bitstream the same rights.
>
>TrueDoc does not create font files on the viewing system- it images the
>glyphs directly.
This is rubbish, the PFRs are stored in the Navigator cache folder.
>This provides the best possible output quality and
>protects the font from being copied. Additionally, TrueDoc incorporates
>a security technology we have named DocLock that prevents imaging the
>fonts with any documents except those created by the owner of the web
>site.
Tests I have done indicate that this security is "permeable".
>
>It is true that TrueDoc may not generate output identical to the
>original font engine on the original authoring system. There are a
>number of reasons for this, not the least of which being that TrueDoc
>employs very advanced antialiasing, sub-pixel positioning, and edge
>filtering algorithms to ensure the best possible output quality on a
>variety of video displays. It is not due to any destruction of the
>integrity of the glyph shapes- indeed, in a non-pixelated world there
>would be no discernable difference.
But the point is that you're selling the technology into a "pixelated
world", where font integrity is paramount, TrueDoc's conversion process
destroys that integrity. The only reason TrueDoc uses anti-aliasing is to
try and mitigate the damage done to the font in this process, monotone
glyphs would be extremely ugly.
I would dispute that in a "in a non-pixelated world there would be no
discernable difference", anyone wishing to see the resulting vectors can
view for themselves. I have comparisons between the output and the
original font, the difference is easily discernable.
-- Clive